Union Home ministry sounds nationwide alert as 8 SIMI terrorist escape from jail

Law Kumar Mishra

Patna: Union home ministry on Monday morning issued a nationwide alert as eight dreaded terrorists of SIMI escaped from Bhopal central Jail in the wee hours after killing a head constable and injuring a constable in the jail. Three of these terrorists had escaped from Khandwa jail in 2014 and were arrested from Rourkela (Odisha) after two years. They managed to escape from jail for the second time.

The Chief secretary and DGP rushed to central jail and Home minister, MP, Bhupinder Singh held an emergency meeting with jail officials and instructions were issued to all SPs to launch search operations.

The terrorists overpowered the security guards killing the head constable Ramashankar Yadav by cutting his neck with blades and injuring a constable Chandan Kumar. They used quilts to scale over the jail wall. The incident took place between 12.30  and 2 am but the Bhopal police was informed about it at 4 am, Bhopal SP Srwind Saxena said. Home minister, MP, admitted lapses on part of the jail authorities and said terrorists were kept in a single cell in B block of  the jail. The MP government announced reward of Rs five lakh for each of  the eight terrorists-  Mehboob, Amjad, Khaliq, Jakir, Khaliq, Majid, Salikh, Maqbool. The MP government has informed union home minister about the development.